The positive benefits of exercise are well known and regular exercise is increasingly becoming a part of the modern lifestyle. Particularly in urban and suburban settings, exercise available in health clubs is often repetitive and boring. Attention and motivation are key to success but are often neglected or not creatively approached by designers of exercise equipment. Concurrently, the fields of robotics, simulation, computer graphics, and virtual reality, are all advancing rapidly. These are being applied in entertainment, industrial, military, space, and rehabilitation medicine applications, but have received little attention in conditioning and sports medicine.
Generally, in interactive robotics using such methods as remotely actuated mechanisms or in simulators, controls incorporating force sensing and position detection may be used. Virtual reality systems applied to simulations such as preparation for space missions or strictly for entertainment also use force and position detectors. But these inventions differ fundamentally from exercise machines in that they are not specifically adapted to apply the type of load to the user which results in the most beneficial conditioning effect. In exercise machines, exertion to the point of fatigue, as well as to the limits of strength, are important to the achievement of health benefits by the user. Exercise machines are designed to maximize the safe strain on the user. By contrast, interactive robotics and machine controls are designed to minimize strain on the operator and to reduce fatigue thereby increasing worker output and accuracy.
Computer controlled exercise machines which utilize a virtual reality or hybrid environment must be robust, must be capable of applying loads up to the usual limits of human strength, and must be suited to many repetitive cycles. Delicate sensors susceptible to flex fatigue failure are undesirable. Components must be adapted to withstand exposure to sweat without corrosion or electrical failure. Skin abrasion and blister formation should be avoided. Typical virtual reality components such as sensor-equipped gloves and body suits, and heavy visual display helmets are not well adapted to exercise applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,319 entitled FORCE FEEDBACK AND TEXTURES SIMULATING INTERFACE DEVICE discloses a force-actuating device which transmits force to a pressure-sensing body part and also includes sensors to measure the actual force applied to the body part as well as additional sensors to measure joint angles. These components may be incorporated into a "feedback glove" permitting texture information and other simulation of grasping in a virtual reality system. The force transmitters and sensors are intended for relatively low loads, such as at finger joints, and no applications for exercise are anticipated. The invention is principally concerned with transfer of information at the man-machine interface rather than the transfer of significant conditioning forces at the interface as are required for effective exercise.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,227,985 entitled COMPUTER VISION SYSTEM FOR POSITION MONITORING IN THREE DIMENSIONS USING NON-COPLANER LIGHT SOURCES ATTACHED TO A MONITORED OBJECT, relates to ". . . monitoring the position and orientation of an object while it is displaced by an operator, who is enabled to interactively control various devices such as teleoperated mechanisms or graphics displays presented to his eyes while his motions are sensed and computed." The invention finds application in "communication methods with the virtual world", and although it could be incorporated as a component of a computer controlled exercise machine the patent makes no mention of and does not anticipate this use.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,934,694, entitled COMPUTER CONTROLLED EXERCISE MACHINE, discloses a device to apply computer controlled forces to the user for the purpose of exercise and to measure performance. Although the device includes a display, no aspect of virtual reality is incorporated.
A number of additional prior art patents disclose exercise inventions having computer control but do not include the concept of virtual reality or any perception that the user is exerting exercise force to manipulate the image of an apparent object in his visual field. These include U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,437, entitled ROBOTIC EXERCISE MACHINE AND METHOD, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,919,418 entitled COMPUTERIZED DRIVE MECHANISM FOR EXERCISE, PHYSICAL THERAPY AND REHABILITATION.
Additional prior art patents incorporate games displayed on a video monitor together with an exercise apparatus to increase motivation and interest during exercise or conversely, to include useful exercise in game playing. Among these are U.S. Pat. No. 4,408,613, entitled INTERACTIVE EXERCISE DEVICE, U.S. Pat. No. 4,489,938, entitled VIDEO COMPUTER SYSTEM CONTROLLED BY OPERATION OF ELASTOMERIC EXERCISE APPARATUS, U.S. Pat. No. 4,542,897, entitled EXERCISE CYCLE WITH INTERACTIVE AMUSEMENT DEVICE, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,558,864 entitled HANDGRIP EXERCISING, COMPUTER GAME CONTROLLER.